


Interlude

by grandfatherclock, shaypotter, smokeandjollyranchers



Series: Kingdom Come [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Community: widojest love, F/M, Oral Sex, PWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 10:23:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20080639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grandfatherclock/pseuds/grandfatherclock, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shaypotter/pseuds/shaypotter, https://archiveofourown.org/users/smokeandjollyranchers/pseuds/smokeandjollyranchers
Summary: Jester is stirring awake beside him, and she’s in his arms. She’s in hisarms, and it’s one of those rare times Bren Aldric Ermendrud isn’t in a rush, isn’t thinking about the next mission, the next meeting with Master Ikithon, the next tuning session with the syringes and needles and crystals. He doesn’t need to immediately go back to Rexxentrum, and he’s more healed now thanks to Jester than he has been in a while, and he’s blinking. He can just be, just exist, at least for this little while, and Jester is cold in his hands in that endearing way she tends to be. She’s leaning back into his bare chest that’s riddled with scars and marks and burns, and he can’t help but think, traitorously—“I could do this forever.”





	Interlude

The sun filtering through the windows is nice.

It’s fucking _nice_, and it shouldn’t be. The windows in the room Master Ikithon allows him in the manor are faced away from where the sun rises. When he gazes out, he looks across the flat field where he used to be trained with the hounds, where he still sometimes sees kids—_future Vollstreckers_, he reminds himself dully, _the training prepares them for their missions, they should cry and get it out of their system here rather than in some Kryn prison_—being trained, sometimes by Astrid, sometimes by another, sometimes by _him_, white and gold robes cascading in the distance.

There are no windows in Astrid’s safehouse, in most safehouses they operate in that are to the exterior of the cities and towns. She planked them up, her shirt sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and he handed her the nails. He remembers the sounds of the hammer against the wood, the sensation of the cool nails against his heated hand. Astrid grinned as he passed them to her, commenting lightly on _how you’ve warmed them all up, Schatz, they’re all weird in my hand._ His lips quirked up at that, and he watched the cool night from the windows disappear.

The light streaming in is so _nice._ The curtains billow with the wind, and the way the sunlight filters through the light peach fabric cascades Jester’s room in this soft hue, making everything feel hazy and _strange_, it’s so _strange _how nice this is. Jester’s bed is so soft, and he shifts in the duvet, all the pillows alienating. He's so used to one, used to a simple mattress. He’s slept over in her room before—_in her room full of heretical insignia, in her heretical temple_, he thinks numbly, bitterly—but it’s off-putting every time.

Jester is stirring awake beside him, and she’s in his arms. She’s in his _arms_, and it’s one of those rare times Bren Aldric Ermendrud isn’t in a rush, isn’t thinking about the next mission, the next meeting with Master Ikithon, the next tuning session with the syringes and needles and crystals. He doesn’t need to immediately go back to Rexxentrum, and he’s more healed now thanks to Jester than he has been in a while, and he’s blinking. He can just be, just exist, at least for this little while, and Jester is cold in his hands in that endearing way she tends to be. She’s leaning back into his bare chest that’s riddled with scars and marks and burns, and he can’t help but think, traitorously—

“I could do this forever.”

As soon as those words leave through his parted lips he stiffens with shock, wondering how the fuck he allowed this facsimile of domesticity to fool him, those lovely curtains and the _light_ and the pillows entrancing him with this haze, but he… he means it. He’s fucking disgusted—and disgusted that he isn’t disgusted, not really—to find that he means… every single enunciated syllable. It’s an accident how these little words like _warm_ and _safe_ and _light_ have coalesced into that sentence, it’s horrible how she makes his brittle heart seem to stutter, play make-belief into this possibility that he doesn’t have to live all broken and hurting the way he does.

Gottverdammt, he _whispered_ it against her skin, and he was smiling. Is smiling. He can’t quite stop himself—another lie, but he can’t quite stop himself from not _wanting_ to smile—and Jester is leaning into him, all soft and cold in the way she is, tearing at his careful rituals and making him feel all open and raw. He hates how he feels this way, and he hates how he really, truly doesn’t. He hopes that this never stops, that he isn’t tempting fate, tempting Master Ikithon with his quiet disappearances Astrid can no longer account for, by _staying_, by allowing himself to _stay_. Even just for a few hours, even just for a few days, longer than he should.

Jester turns slightly to catch his gaze, and he smiles at her, hoping his expression isn’t too open that it ruins her mood. Her lips still for a moment before she continues to widen her grin, and that can mean a whole host of things. She’s so damned clever, so fucking sharp, and she’s giggling wildly in his arms, careful in her movement so she isn’t dislodging the arm around her waist. _Demanding like that_, he thinks, his jaw shifting slightly, _always wanting more of my touch, always asking for harder, faster_. Always wanting for more of me, he doesn’t allow himself to think, feeling those words stuttering in his head and pushing them far, far away from his subconscious. She’s generous, and she’s sweet, and _Bren_ is the broken one, the ruined one, the one who wants too much with his presumptuous thoughts, the one who—

“I mean,” Jester sighs, raising an eyebrow as her eyes watch his face and her voice interrupts his hurting mind, “you’d get pretty hungry if we did this _forever_." Bren blinks and she smirks. "Like, _yeah_, sure, sex will keep us distracted for a _day,_ but then you’ll get all _cranky_.” Her hand moves to his face—_more, demanding more, keep demanding more_, his wretched mind thinks—and he leans into her touch. “Plus, you _barely_ eat enough as it is.”

Bren smiles at that, can’t help _but_ smile, and his own hand raises up, up, _up_, up to _her_, up to along the edges of her smile. She’s so _young_, and there’s this light in her eyes. _Used to be brighter_, he thinks, remembering a half-orc tied to the table, remembering Jester’s whispered hiss in his ear, remembering, remembering, remembering Only twenty years old—_I’m nearly twenty-one, Bren, come on!_ he remembers her saying when he pointed this out—and she’s seen so _much_ of this world, been hurt so much by it, has created a home in this temple, seen the true cruelty of the creature that wears his face. He knows it doesn't come at a cost, bedding literal fucking _monsters_, and he knows there's something about him that impossibly brings her comfort… but still, this light. Her decision to choose light.

_How?_ Bren thinks. _This world is so broken. We’re such broken people. How do these curtains and these pillows not disgust you? How do you make it so they don’t disgust me, when I’m sitting here and you’re in my arms?_

He doesn’t say that. “I _am_ hungry,” he murmurs, his voice low and filled with affection he can’t afford to have. _He doesn’t like the competition,_ Astrid whispered then, and Bren resists the grimace on his face, not allowing it to interrupt the smile. _Selfish, selfish, selfish_, he thinks. Wulf would bark out a laugh if he could see Bren’s face right now.

Jester’s eyebrows raise, and she moves like she might just pull out from his grasp. He hates how he instinctively pulls her close. “_Oh_, why didn’t you say so, I can bring us something _back, _just—”

Bren grips her arms, knowing she could easily disentangle them if she so wished. She doesn’t, she allows him to have his way with that little smile on her lips, and he flips her until he’s hovering, his smile a little wicked. It’s playful, it’s disarming, like everything and everyone else in this room, and he bites a kiss into her freckled blue neck, already all elegant and lovely and marked from the night before. “I didn’t say what I was hungry _for,_” he chides, biting down lower on her throat to press kisses into her collarbones.

Jester laughs, arms twining around his neck and pulling him closer—_like I could leave you,_ he thinks, the reverence and alarm of his thoughts evenly matched—and he lets himself close, close to her. He allows himself this extra moment as they kiss, all heated and languid and soft, and allows himself to exist in the quiet of this early morning with nothing but Jester and her room for company.

_I could do this forever_, Bren thinks.

He pulls her close and leaves another chaste kiss against her collarbones, smiling against her icy skin—she's always so cold, he wonders what she makes of it, of all his heat, of his ruined thumb trailing to her breast and playing with her nipple—as she moans, resting on her forearms so she can watch him. He allows his gaze to linger on those toned freckled arms for a moment, all tense and smooth and _beautiful_, she's so _beautiful_—

"Stay on task, Ermendrud," Jester sings, tilting her head and raising an eyebrow. He bites into her skin in response, worrying it between his teeth and leaving a bruising mark. She sighs, her hair disheveled and glorious and a mess around her. It makes the blue of her face even more radiant, that flush to her cheeks and her neck and her sternum that much more obvious, that much more dramatic, and Bren could do this forever_, I could do this forever, I really could, Lavorre_—and _oh_, it's the sound of her head being thrown back that forces these lilting promises to die in his wretched throat. It's her violet eyes closing that make him _remember_.

Jester opens one eye and gazes at him, and he smiles, a hand on her side. "I'm on task, Lavorre," he sighs, the lie easy on his tongue. He's not on task right now, he should be recuperating in _Zadash_, they think he's in _Zadash_, but of all his lies, this is his one of his more innocent ones. "I have you," he says, and then he lowers his head, tracing over her skin with his tongue and his lips and his teeth. Her body is already shifting under him, those sounds she makes with her eager, parted lips divine. They're a sermon, they're a path which he is unable to take, and so he just listens.

_I could do this forever_, he thinks. Her hand is in his hair, her cold fingers threading through and disheveling it like it's all hers to muss up. Honestly, right now it _is_, he _is_. Bren isn't very honest with himself but he can admit this. Her grip tightens as he presses a kiss against a nipple, already stiff from when his thumb rubbed at it, before he sucks, lips curving into a lazy grin. She moans, this lilting gasp of _ah_ and his name breathed through her lips. Lovely, _wanting_ in how she bites down on the lower one. Perfect, like the rest of her, perfect in all her broken glory.

_I could do this forever_. He moves to her other nipple, and she makes this soft whining sound when he momentarily pulls away, and then grins as she sees him lower his head to her other breast. His rough fingers dig into her sides—gorgeous, freckled skin, he swears he could count each freckle like little stars in the sky, study her for days and days and _days_ with his memory, rediscover her every night—and she sighs as he continues down, down, _down_, all the way down to her stomach.

_I could do this forever_. Toned, firm muscle and the beautiful curves of her hips greet him. His hands continue trailing down as his face does, breathing over her cold skin. From how she shivers he can tell his mere _breath_ is warming for her. Then he begins pressing kisses against her stomach, his tongue leaving wetness in its wake. He feels his jaw shift as he makes little marks, scraping his teeth and leaving bruises that compliment the marks from last night, but _oh_, how she shifts for him, squirming and whimpering and whispering divine words like _yes_ and _ah_ and _please_ and _good_. Wretched words like _Bren_ make their way through her parted lips too, but he can't fault her, fault _that. _He's very convincing, like a snake in her lovely garden, poisoning her one wicked day by one wicked day.

_I could do this forever_. He breathes over her cunt, and can smell her, knows how wet she already is from his teasing little kisses. Her hand is tight in his hair but she doesn't push, she _never_ pushes. It's her restraint, and it's what makes her radiant, what makes her a High Priestess. She's gazing at him with half-lidded eyes, and she's shifting her jaw, trying so hard to be patient, and he smiles, leaning down and running a tongue lightly through her folds. She gasps and his smile widens.

_Forever and ever, I swear I could do this forever, love you forever—_

"Bren," Jester mumbles, and he looks up, raising an eyebrow at her hazy voice. There's something off, something wrong, and he stills, mentally going through everything he just did. It's nothing new, but he's suddenly scared stiff by the idea that his searching tongue and teasing marks and hands on her hips annoyed her, hurt her, he didn't mean to_—_

"_No_,” Jester nearly hisses, violet eyes watching him, and she pulls Bren up easily, into a heated kiss with their tongues dancing around each other and their teeth clacking. She pulls him back and and puts cold, grounding hands on his face. "Mon ange, we're _good_, you didn't do anything wrong."

Bren blinks at her, and then gives her this smile, his shoulders all bracing and tense. "Your _voice_," he murmurs, his voice quiet. Jester's eyes are so fucking gentle right now he can hardly stand it, and he hates that he does. "I'm bad with accents, but I know how to control my voice. Know the way to tense it, to make it _soft_, make it easy." He exhales through his teeth. "Jester, I don't like how you stressed your vowels just now." She stares at him and he averts his gaze, looking to the rumpled bed sheets. "Tell me why you stressed your vowels." _Tell me how I ruined this_.

"Bren," Jester says, her voice kind. She doesn't say anything else until his gaze flits back to her, his jaw clenched. "I just... this isn't a _goodbye_ fuck, right?" Her lips quirk and become sadder, and the way she bites her lower lip now is less desire and more worry. "I don't wanna see you leave, it's only been a couple days. I just wanted to make sure." She leans close and presses their foreheads together. "Ja?"

"... Ja," Bren murmurs after a moment, his head spinning. She wants him here. She wants him here and it's startling to hear every time. Rexxentrum feels so far away right now, like it's on another planet, like it's on another _plane_. "I mean, _nein._ It isn't a goodbye fuck. I can stay for another couple days. I promise." It's strange to have his word mean something, mean something to someone that isn't Astrid with her sharp eyes and Wulf with his smile like daggers.

Jester smiles, and it's so fucking beautiful Bren forgets to hate himself as he basks in it, in her light, in _her_.

He gazes at her for a moment, and then he moves back to his previous position, his own lips pulling into a smile as Jester lets out this delighted little laugh, shaking her head at how he moves her leg with his hand—his blackened fingertips against her toned legs are quite _something_—up onto his shoulder. He braces her there as he leans forward and runs his tongue through her again. She sighs as it briefly brushes her clit and Bren grins as he reaches in with his other hand, beginning to rub her clit while his tongue continues in its pattern. Her back arches almost immediately.

She's saying his name, again and again and _again_, and the way she breathes it, her voice heavier than it usually is, makes it sound less brittle, less _cutting_, as he processes her gasps. _You really can do anything_, he thinks, and his lips would curve up further if his tongue weren't pressing into her right now, if he weren't groaning as he feels her clench against him for just a moment before she forces herself to relax. Her hand is back in his hair, her fingers running through his strands, and Bren sighs. Their eyes meet for a moment before his tongue curls, and she leans her head back, smiling.

"You're so good," Jester groans, and Bren stills for a moment before he continues pressing his tongue into her, another finger reaching out to play with her clit. She's entirely too clever and leans back up on her forearms, her dark eyes glittering as she gazes at him with her leg on his shoulder, he himself watching her through his eyelashes. Her other hand reaches out and runs a thumb over his cheek, and her smile widens. "You look _really_ good eating me out, Bren. It's almost like you were born for this, you know? Born to sit between my thighs."

Bren groans as he feels her fingers curl, tightening her grip on his hair—and _fuck_, she's _still_ not pushing, still being patient, patient with _him_. There's something exciting in all her slow movements, at the way her firm, strong arms are resting and content to have Bren to move at this pace. He's seen her squirming, seen her impatient, but he loves this just as much, loves seeing the way she controls herself, watches him with that heated and claiming gaze. He pushes his tongue in deeper, breathing in her wetness, goes as deep as he's able. It's not nearly enough.

Jester runs light circles over his cheek and she's still praising him, still whispering little assurances as she groans and shifts with the flicks of his ruined fingers against her clit—and _ah, fuck the Traveler, like_ that, _keep doing_ that, and so he does, and he does, and he _does_. Her words are starting to fail her, and she's slipping into another language—_Infernal_, he thinks, remembering casting _Comprehend Languages_ and speaking with that strange passive structure of the sentences when he was on this mission in Rosohna—and she's thrusting into him, her hand tight on his hair, still not pushing_._

He's intimately aware of her gaze on him and can't _help_ it, can't help his half-lidded eyes looking at her intently, aware of how the hue of the arcane lights in her room play off his pale blue eyes that are nearly reflective in their brightness. He knows he's pretty, he knows he's beautiful, and he knows how to play people for everything they have. Play people for their lives. What he's doing _now_, with how his shoulders are braced and the way his eyebrows furrow, is this strange mix of training but _not_, instinct but _not_, genuine but _not_—sometimes parts of him are so intertwined with Rexxentrum it's impossible to parse them apart from what belonged to Bren Aldric Ermendrud, born to poor rubes in the Zemni Fields. He was always _vain_, but—but—

Jester moans his name, her eyes dark and fluttering, and he knows she's close. _Good._ She's gasping, and—_fuck_, this part is the trained charisma, the searching eyes looking for good openings to give little compliments is _trained_, he wasn't always this smooth—he _winks_ at her, curling his tongue just right to make her tense, her back locking in as she comes. Her grip tightens enough to be painful, and Bren welcomes it, welcomes the grounding pain, almost misses it as she slumps, letting him go. She's smiling, Jester Lavorre is _smiling_, and she looks so laid out amongst these rumpled sheets it's a little obscene, a little divine. He wipes his mouth and Jester watches him, grinning.

"Your turn?" Jester says, raising an eyebrow as he crawls back up, slumping beside her and curling an arm around her waist. She mirrors his movement, hugging him back, and her cool arms are bracing around him, helping him blink back the cloying, bitter feeling that headspace leaves him in. He slips into it involuntarily, slips into it without meaning to, slips into it and _enjoys_ it, indulges in his wretchedness. It's strange, and it wasn't for a while that he realized everyone wasn't this way, but... but it feels safe here, with Jester.

That's _terrifying_.

"No," he sighs, head against a pillow as he gives her a little half-smile. The creature writhes under his skin, wanting, wanting, _wanting_, and Bren really doesn't want to think about how he'll perform for her, all flushed cheeks and neck, and his hand running through his own hair to part it in that _way_, making little keening noises that are all desperate and wanton. It's too much, _he's_ too much, and her cool skin is so welcoming, so different from his racing thoughts that obsess him like—_fire_, the _fire_, he thinks, and he nearly rolls his eyes to himself. "Not right now, Schatz."

“Later then.” She decides, running her thumb over his bottom lip. Her eyes watch him, and of course she knows, of _course_ she does. Jester Lavorre is insightful, more insightful than he is a liar, and he’s _such_ a good gottverdammt _fucking_ liar. Her forehead creases, and her smile is gentle. “When the shadows are out of your eyes.” 

Bren sighs, closing his eyes, avoiding and grateful for that careful violet gaze. She’s so damn disarming, he thinks of how lucky this world is that it was the Traveler and not someone else—_someone with white and gold robes_, he thinks, his jaw clenching, because this is traitorous, this is all so _traitorous_—that found her. “Later then.”

Jester leans forward and kisses him on the forehead. Her lips are soft, they're always _soft_, and it's more than he deserves, eating her out is more than he deserves. Waking up next to her, waking up to see those curtains and the light and the pillows against his bare back are more than he deserves. He should… he should be punished, really, he should be kicked out for indulging in this consecration, and he doesn’t _want to. _He doesn’t fucking _want_ to be punished, and it _hurts_, it all _hurts_. 

"We have time for later," Jester whispers, careful as ever as she stares at the microexpressions flitting by his face, and her smile widens as he nods after only the slightest hesitation.

Her hand intertwines in his, cool and bracing and _more than he deserves_, and Bren shifts his jaw.

_I could do this forever,_ he thinks.

**Author's Note:**

> LMAO, so this was written! Shay wrote a gorgeous drabble, and it escalated. Bren and Jester deserve some softness before it all goes to shit.
> 
> —grandfatherclock


End file.
